Peter’s couple therapy blog

On vulnerability part 3.

Where we have strong emotions, we’re liable to fool ourselves. Carl Sagan

We’re never so vulnerable than when we trust someone – but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy. Walter Anderson

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. C.S. Lewis

Love is not love until love’s vulnerable. Theodore Roethke

He liked to observe emotions; they were like red lanterns strung along the dark unknown of another’s personality, marking vulnerable points. Ayn Rand

If you will discipline yourself to make your mind self-sufficient you will thereby be least vulnerable to injury from the outside. Critias of Athens

The time your game is most vulnerable is when you’re ahead, never let up. Rod Laver

With each passage of human growth we must shed a protective structure [like a hardy crustacean]. We are left exposed and vulnerable – but also yeasty and embryonic again, capable of stretching in ways we hadn’t known before. Gail Sheehy

We all need somebody to talk to. It would be good if we talked… not just pitter-patter, but real talk. We shouldn’t be so afraid, because most people really like this contact; that you show you are vulnerable makes them free to be vulnerable. Liv Ullmann

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. Helen Keller

There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community. M. Scott Peck

I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness and the willingness to remain vulnerable. Joseph Addison

Sincerity is an openness of heart; we find it in very few people; what we usually see is only an artful dissimulation to win the confidence of others. François de la Rochefoucauld

We meet on the broad pathway of good faith and good will; no advantage shall be taken on either side, but all shall be openness and love. I will not call you children, for parents sometimes chide their children too severely; nor brothers only, for brothers differ. The friendship between me and you I will not compare to a chain; for that the rains might rust, or the falling tree might break. We are the same as if one man’s body were to be divided into two parts, we are all one flesh and blood. William Penn, English Quaker leader and Founder of Pennsylvania, 1644-1718

The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness. Niels Bohr

Susceptibility to the highest forces is the highest genius. Henry B. Adams

Shy and proud men are more liable than any others to fall into the hands of parasites and creatures of low character. For in the intimacies which are formed by shy men, they do not choose, but are chosen. Henry Taylor. Source

Comments

I got more from six hours couple therapy with you than eighteen months one-on-one with my clinical psychologist.

Matthew

I found your site that day... And your site is the most wonderful, compassionate, complete, real and realistic, hopeful, honest, blunt, detailed website I have ever found!

Marian

Your site is a site full of treasures for people like me. The ones that DO want health but just can't reach it! I have read so many of the pages. I will read them all. I do not know what made you decide to create this haven. I cannot imagine the hours, months, years you put into it. But I want you to know that your words, explanations have become road maps to me. They are the tie for the loose ends. I will forever be in your debt and thankful! I think I will make it now and be able to leave and change my life. Take in a sunset or two. I do."

Deidra G. Alabama USA

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